[iand]

It's real and I have it. I was astonished when I discovered other people see pictures in their head. It doesn't restrict my creative thinking but I am a spatial thinker.

When I solve an imaginary logic problem such as advancing the hands on a clock I can't see the before and after states but I can infer their positions by the directions they must point and then read the new time from that.

[Throw_Away_1049]

Wait, do people see images of a clock in their mind? Like you, I know spatially where the hands should point so I assume this is what “seeing” is. Do people see a clock… like a legit visual when they close their eyes?

[satvikpendem]

Yep, and I can even make the clock tick

[adastra22]

Apparently, yes.

[listenallyall]

Asked to think of the Mona Lisa, there's just... nothing?

[trescenzi]

There’s nothing visual. There’s word association: painting, woman, brown hair, Louvre, Da Vinci and so on. Also potentially emotional response too, I’ve never seen it so I don’t have anything like that.

The best example of this, and why I’m absolutely certain it’s real and there’s not just a miscommunication, is the joke “don’t think of a pink elephant”. Until I learned of aphantasia I always thought it was super dumb because you say the words pink elephant so of course you’re thinking of a pink elephant. But seemingly for a lot of people “thinking of a pink elephant” means “conjuring an image of a pink elephant”. Or something awful that people don’t want to imagine. I’ve never understood “I wish I could unsee that”.